


Where the lovelight gleams.

by reygrets



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut, Kastle Christmas Secret Santa Gift Exchange, Kinda, Tooth Rotting Fluff, a little christmas ficlet, domestic bliss punisher style, its more like implied smut but w/e
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 09:13:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17159291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reygrets/pseuds/reygrets
Summary: I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.a Karen and Frank ficlet for my Secret Santa gift exchange! Happy Holidays to you all.





	Where the lovelight gleams.

It’s Christmas eve - not that two Brooklyn Jews give a shit about Saint Nick but they’ve both been raised without a Shul. Maybe it’s the comfort of childhood familiarity. Probably denial, though, neither of them have much faith in anything, anymore. 

 

Bundled up to stave off the wet cold of a December night, Karen’s kicked her radiator about fifteen times only for it to groan, shudder, and pump out warmth enough to fog her windows just before it dies.  _ Fantastic _ . It’s not like her landlord is on holiday standby, so she’s wearing about seventy-five layers when she lets Frank in.

 

He sniffs, “you gunnin’ for most toes lost Miss Page?” Frank’s watching the plume of his breath get broken up when he chuckles, both amused and concerned. He could probably fix the heat, little bit of elbow grease and a long history of living in slums before he and Maria could afford a house. He’d kept her warm a thousand miles away, knee deep in sand and shit, so it’s the least he could do for Karen, after everything.

 

“You can go be a smartass on the street, Castle,” she retorts, turning on her socked feet to pad back into her apartment with Frank in tow. 

 

He’s trying not to laugh, really, he’s  _ trying _ , but they only get about five feet from the door before he’s caught between losing his shit, and freezing. “Jesus,” he rubs at his arms, “you gotta toolbox?” Frank doesn’t wait for a reply, Karen’s gone into the kitchen to warm her hands over the electric burners, so he turns the opposite way, starts rummaging around in the hall closet as he listens over the din of shifting knick knacks and empty luggage to see if she could speed up the process and answer.

 

There’s no need. Frank emerges victorious a moment later, just as Karen returns with two cups of coffee. 

 

“ ‘m gonna uh, fix it.” Suddenly shy, Frank ducks his head, scrubs at the close shave at the nape of his neck as she sets their drinks down on the end table. An amused gleam in her eyes.

 

Karen curls up on the couch, knees to her chest. She pulls a blanket up and over her, wrapping both hands around her mug to keep warm. The perfect picture of a woman pretending that her subpar standard of living isn’t encroaching on her right to live. Call her a Christmas cynic, but the cold speaks more to her than the holiday lights twinkling, mottled through her frosted over windows.  “My hero.” Deadpanned, but she’s smiling, hides it behind the lip of her mug before taking a sip.

 

Frank sniffs again, nose wrinkling. He tries to hide his smile too, but it’s about as successful as his pretending that he wasn’t doing this to show how much he cares. Words aren’t his strong suit, he communicates through gestures, through acts of kindness. 

 

“Yeah yeah,” he waves it away, but maybe the back of his neck is a little bit red. 

She’s not going to call him on it, even if the city lights pouring in through the nearby window give her a perfect view. Karen’s charmed, if anything, “Seeing as you’re playing repairman tonight, want to take a look at my garbage disposal? Also, the pressure in my shower is inconsistent and…” trailing off when Frank starts chuckling.

 

“That why you invited me over? Spend the holiday in servitude, huh?” He doesn’t turn away from the radiator, and Karen can’t even begin to guess what he’s doing to fix it. 

 

“No,” she draws it out, feigned indignation on behalf of her otherwise  _ incredible  _ hostess abilities. “I can afford someone to fix things, I didn’t need your help -- and, if you recall, you’re the one who offered to repair it in the first place.” Matter-of-factly, with a grin cast at the back of him as if he’d be able to see it.

 

Well, he’d certainly hear her smile if nothing else. 

 

“That so Miss Page? You just uh, make a habit of bein’ cold for no good reason then, yeah?” He throws a wrench back into the toolbox, only to pull out an identical (smaller?) wrench and sets back into the offset pipe. 

 

Karen’s distracted by the line of his forearm, muscles taut and veins pressed up against the skin, only visible with his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. So it takes her a minute to process that he’s giving her shit, again. 

 

“Shut up,” is her incredibly mature response, earns her more of Frank’s belly-deep laughter. The kind that makes her toes curl where her legs are folded up underneath her. 

 

A few minutes pass in companionable quiet when Frank starts humming. It’s soft, at first, so Karen can’t quite make out the tune and then it’s a little bit louder so she’s taken aback when the crescendo is more of a purr in his throat than a rhythm. 

 

_ Baby, it’s cold outside. _

 

And yes, Karen’s very much aware that, at its core, that song is cobbled coercion and really, really strange one-liners but she’s a bit too focused on the fact that Frank’s go-to seasonal hymn is one with uh, implications.

 

What she’s not going to do, is spend the rest of the night reading into it. 

 

(So that’s exactly what she does)

 

His coffee’s getting cold, so Karen prods at him. Just as she does though, the radiator makes a loud, terrible groaning sound. A thud. And then it kicks on - the heat is instant. Karen throws her hands up in celebration, a little ‘hallelujah’ for the holiday and slips down to the ground to kneel beside Frank.

 

“Okay, you really might be my hero,” her teeth chatter as she holds her hands out in front of her, trying to retroactively undo frostbite, or whatever. She’s not able to hold back now, so Frank’s just looking at Karen side-long, you know the face. The one that precedes an ‘I told you so’ and comes back around to bite her swiftly on her ass. 

 

She just scowls, but there’s no venom behind it. Really, she’s happy to finally have heating in the dead of winter, in Hell’s Kitchen, New York. 

 

Karen leans against Frank’s shoulder, under the guise of ‘getting warm’, but also maybe she’s just not sure how else to show gratitude, not sure what to do when Frank comes around and there’s no lead to chase, no thread to pull; nothing to unravel.

 

They have peace but whatever’s been built between them, was made for war. 

 

He loops his arm around Karen’s shoulders, draws her even closer. He doesn’t need an excuse, wouldn’t know what to say if he did. He’s always been honest with her, this would be the worst possible time to change that. 

 

“Your coffee’s probably cold by now,” uselessly pointed out. Frank just shrugs the shoulder she’s not butted up against, and Karen nods. It’s a long few minutes before they move again, quiet, calm. She looks up at the sound of tapping against the glass - fat snowflakes swept up against the prism, framed by streetlights and melting on contact, leaving wet streaks that shimmer in the low glow of a city that never really sleeps. 

 

It’s a picture perfect moment, and despite the fact that Karen’s never given a shit about the holidays, just then, she feels that low fizzling in her gut. That tactile, tangible joy, concentrated Christmas spirit, or whatever. 

 

That might just be the effect Frank has on her, though.

 

Finally, she has to stand because the hardwood flooring underneath her just isn’t that forgiving to her thinly clothed knees. She offers Frank a hand, and he just does that mannish grumbly thing that’s far cuter than the  _ Punisher  _ has any right being. 

 

“I can make some hot chocolate? I uh, bought the peppermint kind.” Nonchalantly, even as she fidgets with the sleeves of her sweater. Hot beverages are, evidently, her go to as an out of practice hostess. She just wanted to have a nice night with Frank, and so far it’s been stilted, a little awkward, and he’d played handyman on a day of rest. 

 

Frank wheezes out a sound of amusement, laughter in the bright of his sable eyes that otherwise goes unspent, “Yeah uh, can’t remember the last time I had cocoa.” He speaks distantly, eyes shifting, unseeing, trying to draw up whatever memory he had of a good, family Christmas. 

 

Karen lets him have that, her fingers brush his in passing as she takes the mug. Washing out both of them so she can replace the cold, stale coffee with something a bit more festive. She isn’t the best cook, but this is really as straightforward as domesticity goes. 

 

Some milk, some cocoa powder, she even diced up a bar of baking chocolate to throw in - add sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg… her small apartment immediately began to warm, delicious notes of the treat she’s cooking up make it feel that much more like home. 

 

She refills their two cups; as luck would have it she has whipped cream - and it isn’t even expired. 

 

“Here,” passing Frank’s off to him, she resettles on the couch, and he takes the seat adjacent to her. Not across. But a foot away. Karen can’t help how her posture adjusts, back rigid and tension knit between her shoulders. 

 

A nervous beat, she bites her lip and searches for something to distract herself from falling down the rabbit hole of overthinking. 

 

She fishes in her sweater’s pocket and pulls out Mistletoe, of all things. “What?” She knows it’s silly, especially when she takes their respective faiths into consideration, but they’d already been victim to kische Christmas traditions - what’s one more? 

 

The implications are … innocent enough, aren’t they? He could kiss her cheek, her hand, her forehead. Really, Karen’s not banking on him actually following through because she rocks back in laughter, in absolute stitches over the ridiculousness of this.

 

Frank’s not. His face is .. stoic, at odds with the lighthearted situation. He leans forward and it’s slow, deliberate in that way of his that’s almost overwhelmingly intense. A kiss to her cheek, then, the skin warms in a wildfire blush because it’s sweet,  _ he’s  _ sweet, and Karen’s lets out a shaky breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. 

 

Karen ducks her head, suddenly shy, “A stickler for tradition, huh?” Trying at levity to gnaw through the tension that wraps thickly around them. It doesn’t work, and a part of her knew it wouldn’t. 

 

He makes an appreciative sound, looking up at her from where he’s dropped his chin - still propped over Karen, her shoulders against the armrest of the couch, half-prone, while he’s got his elbow digging into the back cushion and the flat of his palm just to the side of her waist. There’s something decidedly  _ wanting  _ about the burn of his stare, and Karen’s suddenly caught feeling … seen, on display, despite the fact that Frank’s gaze has dipped, eyes roving slowly over blue and white pattern of her sweater, where the hem’s risen a bit and a sliver of pale stomach shows just above the beltline of her jeans. He swallows visibly. 

 

Karen realizes a little late that he’s asking for permission, to either kiss her again or for something more. She nods her consent, not trusting her voice to be properly seductive, given the givens. 

 

Frank doesn’t speak - she’s not sure whether or not that’s more attractive, or vaguely intimidating but he’s so engaged in the act that she doesn’t really have much room to think on anything at all. 

 

He kisses her cheek, his lips far softer than they had any right being before he drags them lower; refusing to break contact with her skin so it’s more of a lick, less of a kiss when he curls just under the shelf of her jaw. 

 

_ Oh _ , Karen’s nails crackle where they ride the seam of the couch cushion while fumbling to hold on to it more securely. It’s not at all what she’d expected, Frank continuing to overlap each kiss on the edge of the last and he’s worked down her throat, between her breasts, and he doesn’t stop until his lips hit the skin bared by how much more her sweatshirt’s ridden up. 

 

Her mouth’s hung open in an ‘o’, through which she breathes unevenly and Frank’s fingers shake, paused as they cup both her hips, his thumb gently sweeping back and forth over the arch of the bone. She watches him, intent on it even when he deftly unbuttons her jeans, the sound of the zipper louder than her racing heart. Every single moment is weighted in its significance, and Frank’s clearly in his element, so Karen can’t even move out of fear that she’ll break this spell cast over them. 

 

He palms her ass to lift it, tugging where the denim creased at the cleft of her thigh so he can pull it off the rest of the way in a single swift motion. And Karen realizes a little belatedly that she’s wearing white panties with ‘ho ho ho’ stitched on them in alternating green and red. She’d be mortified if Frank didn’t smile, the warm breath of his laughter fanning out against her skin. Karen shivers, and he looks up at her one last time with patience, before his fingers slide gently back up her thighs, and hook one by one under the cotton hem. 

 

She’s never been completely naked around Frank before and the first thing she thinks is that they’re going to fuck while her neighbor plays Christmas music just a little too loudly, with Christmas panties around her ankles and the air smelling like a god damned cookie. It’s hilarious, actually, considering that he’s the Punisher and she’s a disgraced journalist who has spent her life outing the criminal underbelly of New York. 

 

Now’s not the time to marvel at the irony, because Frank’s hands have been replaced by his mouth and the sound she made just then doesn’t qualify as human. She arches up off the couch and he snorts bullishly, gently pushing her hips back down while nosing her thighs apart, all gentle, all slow, this bottomless patience of his. 

 

Falling heavily into this bliss, where she could never have measured the skill Frank Castle has in eating her out or that she insists on returning the favor - ending in a post-coital mess of limbs on her couch, half-dressed, her head on his lap with his lolled over the back of the couch. The imperfect perfection they’d shared burned comfortably into the back of her mind, eyes shining brightly just before they shut and Karen falls asleep hearing the tinny sounds of ‘I’ll be home for Christmas’ with a smile on her face. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This is for Rebecca @nxbodygoesafterher on tumblr, Merry Christmas dear! I hope you enjoy the story I wrote for you.


End file.
